Thesis Update February 19th-25th

On Friday, I was able to film footage at the second Stronghold: The Siege, Lions Gaming’s free Super Smash Bros. Ultimate biweekly. This time, along with a Canon EOS60 camera, I rented a Manfrotto tripod from the AIMM Cage, and this was a tremendous help in keeping the footage stabilized. It was also much easier to set the tripod in place and simply move the arm back and forth than having to carry the camera with me everywhere.

This week was a very important one for the development of my documentary project, because I now have a clear vision of the direction I wish to take it in. Rather than making it one continuous or linear video, I want to make it episodic, highlighting specific events run by Lions Gaming (Stronghold: The Siege, Queen, King, and now Japes), specific players, and the history of the organization. I spent a few days mapping out how I want the episodes to be structured, including what footage to use and who I want to interview:

The above image is just a sample of the notes I took for this.

Each episode in this series would probably be between five and ten minutes. Considering that I now want to highlight the entire TCNJ Smash Bros. community and not just King, I am also considering changing the title of the project. Instead of Countdown to King, the tentative title is now Lions Pride, the new slogan for Lions Gaming.

The first episode I plan to work on, since it is our most recent big event and I shot the most footage at it, is the episode for Queen, which for now is titled “Queen of Your Heart” after a song by Tut Tut Child that I may include in the video.

This Sunday is the first edition of Lions Gaming’s new tournament series Japes, and I will rent out a camera and tripod again to try to interview any notable attendees, as well as possibly Shaun Cardone and Ryan Strenkowski, the creators of the event.